MANILA - Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said phishing attacks on Philippine e-commerce and banking spiked in the second quarter of 2022.

A total of 77,092 phishing incidents were recorded from April to June among Kaspersky e-shop customers in the country from only 15,119 in the January-to-March period, the company said. This was a 409 percent surge in phishing attempts quarter on quarter, Kaspersky said.

Among its local bank customers, Kaspersky said there were 8,454 phishing incidents recorded in Q2 up from 4,746 detections in Q1.

Phishing attacks against Philippine-based payment systems meanwhile went down 19 percent.

"There were 132,125 detected phishing attempts in Q1 among Kaspersky users in the payment system sector. Three months later, it trickled down to 105,986 incidents," Kaspersky said.

Kaspersky said the rise of phishing attacks mirrors the rise of e-commerce in the country, which took off during the pandemic.

“Despite our regained physical freedom, we know that we still prefer to do our banking, shopping, and financial activities online because of its unparalleled convenience,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.

A phishing attack seeks to acquire a user's credentials, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account details, and other confidential information.

Scammers usually send messages in the form of fake notifications from providers, e-payment systems, banks, and other organizations to get users to reveal sensitive info.

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